


And he carries the reminders Of ev'ry glove that layed him down Or cut him till he cried out In his anger and his shame

by orphan_account



Series: My Teen Wolf One Shots [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Family Relationships - Freeform, M/M, Response to Currents, dark thought process
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 19:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/891154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four days</p><p>Four days since they lost Boyd, since Derek was forcibly used as a weapon yet again and they watched him fall apart. It had been the final rip on his seams, the last tug to unravel the masks that he had created years ago.</p><p>It had been Four days since Derek left his bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And he carries the reminders Of ev'ry glove that layed him down Or cut him till he cried out In his anger and his shame

“You must remember, family is often born of blood, but it doesn't depend on blood. Nor is it exclusive of friendship. Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family.”  
\- Trenton Lee Stewart, The Mysterious Benedict Society 

xxx

Four days

Four days since they lost Boyd, since Derek was forcibly used as a weapon yet again and they watched him fall apart. It had been the final rip on his seams, the last tug to unravel the masks that he had created years ago.

It had been Four days since Derek left his bed.

He didn't eat, he didn't sleep without screaming. It was like he was comatose with his eyes opening and closing only when he was out of his mind long enough to remember human beings don't usually go hours without blinking. Stiles pushed back his memories, feeling them cutting against his stomach. He couldn't think about himself now, not with Derek so weak.

Stiles was frantic. He had picked up the trembling Alpha and dragged him away from his sobbing sister, worried at what he might do if no one did something to detach him from what he was feeling. Derek had been too quiet, too plaint to the younger man's touch. Stiles found that the Alphas behaviour in those minutes paired with the rancid smell of Boyd's blood made him think too much of an age past. Full of clumps of hair, hospital rooms and a ghost he called Mom. Of an empty house and an empty father.

He was lost. Derek had been a constant over the last long months of his life – a constant worry, a constant figure, a constant observer. He hadn't always liked the guy, he had worked against him directly many times since they met in the woods so long ago. But they had always kept the other safe when they could, putting their own lives in danger to protect and save. They weren't friends, but they wouldn't let each other die either.

And then Summer happened. Summer happened and Stiles had been alone more often than not and itching to help solve the missing persons cases or Erica and Boyd. He hadn't forgotten about them, not once since the Argent's Basement happened, but it took putting up the Missing Persons flyers for his Dad for him to finally go to Derek. He barely left the older man’s new and less run down living residences after that. He was helping, interacting for the first time in weeks after his near isolation, mostly due to Scott's summer school/work/helping Isaac scheduled.

To his surprise Derek listened. He listened and he planned and on one or two occasions, when they had been taking a break from the not-so-evil-plotting, Stiles had made Derek smile. Small and shy, but it was definitely a smile. A smile Stiles likes. Maybe a little too much.

Okay maybe he had a crush. 

Maybe he was falling head over heels in the most painful way, for a ridiculously good looking person all over again.

Maybe he kissed Derek on the last day of Summer Break.

Maybe he kissed back.

But now, after Derek had been violated all over again, Stiles was lost. Anyone who had eyes and a basic knowledge of Derek knew that he had serious trust and intimacy issues, and though he didn't know the whole story Stiles wished that he would bring Kate Argent back to life just to make her suffer some more. 

Derek wouldn't let him touch him. Wouldn't let anyone but a still wounded Deaton near him. He was trapping himself inside his own body and if he didn't snap out of it soon Stiles was going to show everyone exactly how messed up he had been lately. It was getting to be too much recently.

He sighed and threw himself back on the couch that Lydia had bough into the loft after figuring out Derek watch status of the Pack. 

Huh, pack. Like they were anything but clueless, stumbling, fools.

“Maybe we should take him outside, get him out, you know?” Allison suggested from her space next to Lydia on the brown leather two seater. 

The two girls, along with Scott, Isaac, the two non comatose Hales and Stiles, were all crammed on to three couched and an old arm chair in the middle of Derek's loft. Most of them had barely left, choosing to stay and plan their next move, with or with out the Alpha. It was hard, and they dissolved into fights more often than not, but at least they had managed to get all the information they individually held out there. 

So yeah … it wasn't going so great.

“Hmmm, I don't think so,” Lydia hummed as she delicately picked a grape from the bowl between them, “It might be too much of a shock on his nervous system. Could cause permanent mental damage to change him from his environment without him being slightly okay.”

Peter huffed out a chuckle.

“Being a survivor of a 'Mental Alpha Freak Out', I second what Ms Martin suggests. We don’t want Derek to even have the possibility of the Wolf taking full control.”

“Could that happen?” Isaac asked from his place curled up near Allison's feet.

The older werewolf rolled his eyes.

“You are new here, aren't you?”

Scott glared, attempting to reprimand Peter as much as he could while laying down. He had taken the old floral couch hostage days ago. Fighting against the mountain ash barrier had given him one hell of a headache.

Stiles felt Cora shift next to him. He didn't know what to make of the Hale Female. She was coarse, and sometimes vulnerable, and sometimes steady and then violent. She was classic Hale. Stiles needed more data before she joined his trust waiting line. 

“Well we have to do something soon. If he isn't better by the next moon he may loose control involuntarily. If the Alphas haven't gotten us all by then.” She spoke softly. Stiles wondered how it was that the Hales spoke so softly yet seemed to gruff. Is that a word?

“Deaton said he found nothing physically wrong with Derek,” Scott jumped in, seeing Isaac shift with nerves and Allison's eyes shift to the still marked widow, “And my Mom confirmed it. What ever is happening is happening inside his head. We cant fix him, we can only help him to fix himself.”

“Thanks Dr Phill.”

Scott rolled his eyes at his best-friend and lay his head back down. Derek being out of action was taking a toll on all of them, but no more than Scott who saw the well being of all the others as his responsibility. And as much as Stiles knew he was defiantly a 'true Alpha' or whatever, he was still a teenager and he still needed Derek. As a bouncing board or a big brother figure, Stiles didn't know. He hadn't been able to think straight since he found Derek, broken and frozen over the body of his Beta. 

God he wanted to sleep. But what he wanted didn't matter right now.

“We have to pull him out.”

Isaac frowned at the other boy, leaning forward to better look at him. Lydia was much the same, focusing on him with her all seeing eyes. It had been hours since the goofy teenager had spoke anything remotely serious. 

“What do you mean, Stiles?” Allison asked, soft and kind as always. Stiles loved her in that moment. He needed some kindness right now. They all did.

“When someone is in a coma the doctors always tell you to speak to them, to talk to them because on some level they can hear you and it might help them wake up right?”

“But Derek isn't in a coma.” Isaac drawled, eyes squinted. Stiles had the distinct feeling the wolf didn't like him very much, and trusted him even less. He had the feeling, he didn't particularly care though. 

“No, but he is blocking. He is purposefully pulling himself in on himself to retreat from the world because of how painful it is out here. He is trapping himself so he doesn’t get hurt any more than he already is.”

“So?”

“So we need to pull him out. To-to give him reasons to come back.”

“I don-”

“I know what I am doing okay, Isaac!” Stiles snapped, bolting upright and eyes wild as he spoke, “I have been through this before, Okay. I have seen this happen before. i-”

“Stiles!” Scott tried snapping upright, but Stiles couldn't stop, thoughts and feelings spilling over the carefully constructed embankments and catches he had constructed years ago.

“- Its the … its the same thing I did after my Mom died...”

Scott whimpered and Stiles couldn't meet anyone's eyes. He knew that Lydia and Allison's eyes would be wide and Isaac would be uncomfortable, seeing beyond the comical masks he had worn for years. Peter probably wouldn't care, but he could tell from the shifting beside him that Cora was uncomfortable at the least.

Well, might as well keep going.

“ I- … I had panic attacks lots of them. And them my Dad got hurt on the job,” Stiles could feel and hear his own voice building up with thick emotion, even though he had felt nothing but numb for days, “ I had been convinced he was going to die so I just ...stopped. I stopped everything; feeling, moving, talking. I didn't want to feel...”

He looked up then, catching all of their eyes, seeing but not registering everything they were feeling or projecting at him. He didn't have the energy.

“... So we need to get him out. Because I can tell you now,... It's the hardest thing in the world to pull yourself from that place. It feels too good to feel nothing at all.”

Stiles felt rather than saw the hand grip his from where it was clenching his knee. Felt the sliding honey feeling of being drained, his pain leaving him. Okay, maybe he liked Cora just a little bit.

“Oh god Stiles!” Lydia gasped, looking ready to just across the space at him, “ You … you were only eight...”

Stiles smiled at her. 

“And Derek is what, 48? should be no problem talking him out of this one, right?”

No one commented on his subject change, his diversion away from any more self revelations. They would later. The girls would corner him and comfort him, with Cora standing watch over them all, and Isaac would hug him tightly and for a long time. Isaac was a secret hug monster. And of course, Scott would attack himself to Stiles and refuse to let go for several hours. It was a bro thing.

But now they had stuff to do.

“Okay so we need to ... what?”

Stiles rolled his eyes at his best-friend.

“Talk! To Derek, about things that would make him feel better, make him want back in on life. Positve things.”

“But we don't really know Derek,” Allison pointed out. Isaac nodded, eyes down cast and ashamed.

“Ah.”

Stiles felt wounded again. He had spent months with Derek, literally spending entire days in his presence, and he knew very little more than he had before the Summer. It was like they had spoken without saying anything to one another at all.

“He … played baseball.”

Everyone's eyes flew to Cora. She sat, looking but obviously far away as she gripped Stiles hand. She was grounding herself to the present while she sifted through her memories.

“He would walk me to and from School everyday except when he had Baseball or Lacrosse practice … he would always make me hold his hand when we crossed the street, no matter how old I was, and he piggy back me up the hill even when he was really tired... and when our sister Margaret was born he would read to her every night … just to make sure she had good dreams..”

Peter shifted forwards, looking at his niece with worried eyes but saying nothing.

“He was my hero you know? He was always so quiet and kind, so careful with the human family members. Always reading. He never wanted to hurt anyone ever...oh god.”

Stiles pulled the girl closer, letting her curl around him so no one would see her crumpling face. 

“Hey, i-it's alright...”

“A+ comforting their, Stiles”

“Do you wanna give it a go Lydia?”

Stiles had the feeling Cora was realising that the Derek for before and after the fire where one and the same, no matter now ash covered and smoke damaged. He wondered if she had even had time to think about her family since the fire. He held her tightly, feeling her shake though she made no noise.

Without sound or warning Peter stood from his perch in the old battered arm chair, and strode across the room to disappear through the gaping hole in the wall. Cora lifted her head, still leaning on Stiles, as the others exchanged strange looks.

“Uncle Pete?”

Stiles felt his heart break a little more.

“Maybe it was too much of a walk down memory lane for him?”

Scott revised so many 'Bitch Please' faces for that one it was a wonder he didn't burst into flames and take the ridiculously floral couch with him to his death. But Scott was too much of a puppy to die anyway.

Within moments, and with the trailing sound of a few soft thumps, Peter was back. He strode past them all making a beeline to Derek's position just beside the windows, carting a small object in his hands with tender care as he did.

All six of the teenagers watched as Peter came to a halt beside Derek,s bed, looking down at him with an expression Stiles had only seen Melissa McCall give. And only when she was deeply sorry. Slowly, Peter lowered himself on to the sheet covered bed next to his nephew and bough the book up to the light of the lazily setting sun. Stiles felt all of their hearts clench as they saw the small, scorched and tattered book in his hands.

“Oh..-” Cora breathed.

Peter cleared his throat, opening the book and reading aloud;

“The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring- cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing...”

He didn't stop. Not for hours and no one dare move from their seats lest they break the moment and stop Peter. His voice was soothing, winding and out and around them all melodiously. It was enchanting and unbelievable to hear a man who had once tried to kill most of the people in the room, reading a children’s book to his nephew.

“It was...” Cora whispered, “It was his favourite book. He made Peter read it all the time when he was little. Derek read it to Maggie all the time... to me.”

Peter read on, and on, casting a spell over them all. The sun moved lower, and just as the apartment was bathed in Violet light; Derek yawned, twisting in the bed sheets and moving into sleep. With small huffs and a few snores Derek descended into sleep from his trapped state for the first time in days.

And for the first time in Four days, Stiles felt himself breath.

**Author's Note:**

> Yay! I am dead inside, I miss Boyd 
> 
> Will notes later I am sleepy
> 
> Tell me what you think
> 
> EDIT:
> 
> Thank you all so much for the wonderful response to this!
> 
> I am of the firm belief that while he may be twisted and broken on the inside, he remembers what it is to be an Uncle an maybe even misses it. The book he begins to read Derek is, of course, The Wind in the Willows. I have no idea where that came from to be honest. I have no idea if I did Cora justice, but I tried to show her softer side and how much she misses the life she lost. Writing from Stiles perspective is harder than i thought, phew! 
> 
> So thank you all so much. Can't wait for the rest of season 3!!


End file.
